Every time you open the oven to check, the cake needs longer. Worry works the same way.

Opening the door lets the heat out, so the check itself is what adds the extra ten minutes. Worry runs on the same loop: every time you go and look at the thing, you restart the process and get slightly less than you had before. The looking feels responsible and behaves like interference.

Give worry an appointment instead of a permanent open door. Twenty minutes at six, write down what is actually bothering you, then close the oven. If it comes knocking at eleven, you are allowed to tell it that it already had its slot today.